Cautious bidding efforts by ethanol (Sugar) manufacturers
will definitely bring rewards to the Indian sugar industry.

Dilemma in future prices of alcohol
in the coming year results in under bidding the quantity of
ethanol for fuel blending in India.Out of the total 1016616
KL, the sugar, ethanol manufacturers bided nearly 62% of the
total quantity for ethanol to be blended in fuel in India.
This clearly indicates a smart move by the sugar factories
since they are unwilling to keep all eggs in one basket. This
move will create a win-win situation for everybody, including
the chemical and fertilizer industry who need industrial alcohol
and were not in favor of the fuel blended ethanol. What the
sugar- ethanol factories have achieved is to gain maximum
out of the by-product. Last year we exported molasses around
six lac tons and this balance move by sugar companies will
also keep the molasses export option open.

Looking at last year’s approximate
alcohol consumption figures-
100 Crore liters was for potable alcohol.
70 Crore liters was for industrial alcohol.
71 Crore liters for ethanol, fuel blending which still in
supply process and 65 to 70% will be achieved.

This demand for alcohol is good for ethanol plant manufacturers,
since we believe production of ethanol is a value addition
to the sugar industry and hence more profitable than producing
sugar and even co-generation considering the capital cost
of the project.

On the other hand there is a good scope
to produce alcohol from sweet sorghum, tropical beet and biomass.
Technology companies would play a vital role here. A joint
effort by Oil Marketing Companies, Ethanol Manufacturing Associations,
the Ministry of Oil and Petroleum and all the associations
of sugar factories should join hands to set a roadmap to achieve
the E20 till 2017 objective set by the government. Even investors
should see a promising ROI in the alcohol projects.

The state governments role specifically
in Rajasthan, Punjab, Haryana, Uttarakhand, Bihar, Jharkhand,
Odisha, West Bengal, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Goa, Kerala
and Tamil Nadu have to look into the micro-level of the product
as they have to believe that only potable alcohol should not
be the target. In fact saving also is earning and to make
better tomorrow and to keep the environment clean and make
fresh air to breath in these respective states by burning
a more clean fuel will have an indirect benefit to the people.
So “Jago” state governments. The states like Maharashtra,
Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh have taken this
seriously but would need more efforts.

To conclude the scenario to produce
ethanol has kept wide doors open for the upcoming industries.